Hello to our readers! It's Tia here with my first blog post for IBGW. The first of many.
I'm a geek for all things related to words. Without further ado...
Isn’t it amazing how
important the smallest of punctuation marks can be?
Consider the
apostrophe--small in stature, a simple ’, but huge in importance. After all, an
apostrophe either takes the place of missing letters or assigns ownership. It
is also used to show multiple letters, such as the student received many A’s on
her report card. More on that in a moment.
If Charlie has a dog, it’s Charlie’s dog. The only somewhat confusing aspect to making names possessive… names that end in s. According to AP Style, the newest consensus is to leave off the additional ’s. So it would be Charles’ dog and not Charles’s. However, it is not incorrect to say Charles’s, and that style is favored by Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, although to me it is quite clunky.
In the case of biblical
references, everyone seems to agree—Jesus’ and Moses’ is the way to go.
Interestingly, this was a
debated enough issue that the Arkansas House of Representatives introduced a
bill to clarify the state’s possessive, known as the Arkansas’s Apostrophe Act.
And of course there is the
exception of it’s. Since it’s is it is, the possessive of it is its, no
apostrophe.
Back to the student that
received many A’s on her report card. The A is not A is and it’s not possessive,
so why the apostrophe? Because otherwise it is the word As (same problem for
the letters I and U which would become Is and Us without an apostrophe).
How big of a deal can a
misplaced or missed apostrophe really be?
Let me give you a quick example…
The
girls decision meant life would never be the same.
In a story, it’s important
for the reader to know if that sentence should read girl’s or girls’. Writers
don’t want their readers scratching their head for too long, because then
readers disconnect from the story. Never a good thing.
How can anybody remember
all these rules, especially ones that the grammar experts disagree on?
That’s just one of the
reasons a good editor is important. They do the research and give you their
advice. Just as importantly, they make sure it is consistent throughout your
work. Your readers will thank you for it.
Tia